Companies that perform most of their operations online risk being attacked by cybercriminals trying to steal their sensitive data or hold their business to ransom. This risk is prevalent regardless of whether the company predominantly uses Linux, Windows, Mac, or other operating systems.
Successful cyberattacks can devastate businesses by damaging their reputation, making them lose money, and subjecting them to lawsuits. This is why it is recommended that businesses proactively secure their IT infrastructure, and threat intelligence is crucial to that effort.
Threat intelligence is a cybersecurity practice where security analysts identify and analyze cyber threats to understand them. During this process, security analysts gather information on specific threats so they learn how to avoid or deal with them if need be. This practice is necessary because a company may have a strong cybersecurity system but may encounter a zero-day threat that bypasses all existing protections.
Threat intelligence will help companies equip themselves with the necessary tools and strategies to mitigate specific threats before encountering them. This process involves the collection of threat data from various sources like other companies, online forums, and security logs. Some people or organizations that have suffered cyber attacks share their experiences so others can learn from them or create efficient strategies to prevent them.
There is software for sharing threat intelligence but the language can sometimes be confusing. This makes it difficult for recipients to act on the intelligence being shared. Fortunately, there are add-on communication programs like STIX and TAXII that standardize the language, so they can be easily understood.
Importance of Threat Intelligence
Many software programs, procedures, and strategies offer business cybersecurity protections. But threat intelligence stands out because it is proactive, not reactive. It also provides the following benefits:
Data breach prevention
Data breaches are security incidents where malicious actors gain unauthorized access to the IT infrastructure of a company and can view and extract sensitive data. Threat intelligence helps companies know the new strategies cybercriminals use to hack into Linux systems, cloud platforms, and other crucial parts of an IT infrastructure so they can keep them out.
Strengthening of safety measures
When the cybersecurity personnel in a company know about a threat, they will be able to put adequate security measures in place to repel that threat. The threat faced can be specific to an operating system. For example, Windows computers can be more at risk than those running Linux . The personnel must thoroughly understand the threat and implement safeguards to neutralize it before it can cause damage.
Improve other people’s security knowledge
Cybercriminals often strike different targets at once, so sharing threat intelligence with other companies will help in the collective fight against cybercrime.
Categories of Threat Intelligence
Threat intelligence has three categories as outlined below:
- Operational threat intelligence
This category of threat intelligence is designed to find out the types of people perpetuating cyber attacks, their motives, and their mode of operation. Security analysts do this by studying past security incidents to note the timing, complexity of tools used, and patterns indicative of a specific kind of attack.
- Tactical threat intelligence
Cybersecurity personnel conduct this category of threat intelligence when looking to eliminate specific threats in a network. They search for indicators of compromise like a suspicious increase in upload and download requests, unauthorized login attempts, unusually high network traffic, and emails from potential malicious domains.
- Strategic threat intelligence
This category involves the gathering of threat data from a wide range of sources like news reports, research, and white papers. Business leaders use this form of threat intelligence to learn the motivations of cybercriminals, how likely they are to attack their company, and the security trends in their industry.
Endnote
Threat intelligence is essential in the fight against cybercrime because it helps companies prepare for cyberattacks and adequately respond where necessary. Security analysts gather threat data from multiple sources to learn from others’ experiences and discover the new ways cybercriminals use to attack their victims. Threat intelligence is most effective when combined with other security strategies, so no attack goes unnoticed.
